As the weeks became months, many new guilds had sprouted up in the 4 cities as numbers of hunters increased. 

Lex was told by Heather, who was monitoring the towers and hunters before she herself entered, that all the towers worldwide finished at the same time, letting go survivors, and kidnapping a new 10,000 people.

That means, like a race, as long as 1 person in 1 tower finishes the 99th floor, the race ends and everybody exits

So Lex was practically the pace setter for the first 5 rounds. But it also meant that the hunters worldwide from the towers are weaker than they should be, especially in the 4th and 5th round.

This was because the faster Lex took to finish the tower, the less people would have gone up to the higher floors to get better weapons. Also in the LA tower, Lex took all the treasures and Easter Eggs, leaving nothing for everyone else.

As a result of that, more hunters from the towers were being killed in the increasingly difficult Gates. However, Lex guessed that the future tower hunters will be more powerful than the present.

Inversely, the Gate awakeners seemed to compensate by more and more powerful hunters awakening to fight in the Gates. It was as if there was some intelligence behind the awakenings, ensuring that the awakeners were just sufficient to finish the Gates awaken at just the right time.

It was like there were two separate intelligences behind the two systems, the tower and the gates, that has not related to each other.

The tower hunters were initially finishing the early Gates too early, stopping the Gate awakeners from amassing enough experience. But now, the Gates were getting too challenging for the stunted tower hunters and the awakeners were the ones getting more powerfuk.

Of course, the one that screwed up the balance of power was Lex. Without him, there would be no Jasmine released into the world. Without him there would be no Mid level Xiantian Anna who had been further upgraded with duplication powers. Without him there would be no well trained Heather, who was now an impressive warrior with her abilities. 

Without Lex's training, even with a power from an Easter Egg, Anna and Heather would be no better than Mona, who was not particularly powerful. 

Because of all this Lex did not know that there were several presences that had taken notice of him and his companions. 

--

Today, the Revengers were having a meeting. 

The military had sent over a military trained hunter to join their ranks as a liaison. 

Many of them suspected that this was to keep an eye on them, as the US government did not want another Olympus Guild style incident where the guild became too powerful for their own good. 

A man dressed in military uniform marched in and smiled

"Donny? Captain Donny Benedict?" Lex said, wearing Heather's body, so he could meet face to face

He saluted before shaking hands 

"Lex! I'm Commander Benedict now, so technically, I outrank you" Donny laughed as they embraced

"You are the government liaison? I didn't know you were a hunter!" Lex asked

"Sure am. I awakened just about 4 years ago after the 3rd cycle ended. Received the standard awakening but I progressed quickly, thanks to your old training.

The government formed its own Hunting unit called the Roughnecks, led by yours truly, Captain Death!" Donny smiled before looking at Lex awkwardly

"Captain Death huh?" Lex smiled

"Hahaha you'll always be the first Captain Death. Your legend precedes you. But since you had been discharged, I received the moniker after taking over our old squad and hunted monsters, and it stuck." Donny said

"No worries. I just forgot about that moniker. So, what is your role here? What will you be doing? How should we treat you?" Lex asked

"Just send me to clear Gates with your team. Treat me like one of you. I just have to make reports every week. After the Olympus Guild, the government had to have a massive culling of people of influence connected to the Olympians. They just want to make sure it doesn't happen again" Donny said

"Um.. sure. We have nothing to hide" Lex said

And like that, Commander Death joined the Revengers.

--

Lex relented to open up the Revengers to more members. 

Since they destroyed the Olympus Guild and effectively reduced the number of high ranked hunters in their city, although unstated, they carried more responsibility for the increasing Gates.

While Jasmine and Heather were one man armies, Lex and Anna were one army in a man. But as the gates kept increasing, they both were having their own difficulties handling too many gates by themselves, lest they lose control. 

Lex could easily flood gates with his shadow clones, however like in the tower between floors, he could communicate or control shadow clones in the gate. Hence if he sent them in, he had to be there to monitor them. 

He would only know when they are destroyed, because he could summon them again on Earth if that happened. However, he had so many, it wasn't as if he felt one of them die immediately. So he wouldn't know what happened if a shadow clone dies in the gate unless he was looking to summon them again and realise he is able to. 

But he had thousands of them, many of them unnamed. He wouldn't even know if they died, unless it was his shadow clone leaders whom he had the closest affinity to. 

He could, however leave shadow clones on earth while he went on missions. The clones have intelligence,  and with general orders, knew what Lex expected of them. 

Anna too was having problems. As all her duplicates were actually exactly like her and were independent, she wouldn't generally know what each of them are up to, until they remerged back together. She only had limited telepathy with them that didn't extend to other dimensions through the gates. 

As such, she realized some of them disappeared for weeks, only to return later. Many of them went to different gates, gathering more experience and shared the experiences with her when they merged. Or looking at it the other way, Anna goes on missions and sends her other duplicates on yet other missions and they all return to share the experience with the "Home" Anna. 

Because they were all independent, she doesn't know how many of her are out there. Her duplicates can duplicate too. But in general they were all of the same opinion, and they all decided to keep the total limit to 50 unless in emergencies. So far she thinks all of her have stuck to it. 

So besides Donny, they recruited a B Rank awakener called Matty Wilson aka Techmonkey who had the ability to control machines. They also recruited siblings David and Patricia Hardy, both C Rank awakeners who were marksmen in the military. While they didn't have the best weapons, they made a name for themselves with their basic plasma rifles due to their incredible accuracy from long distance.  

While they were excellent marksmen, they had a strange power. They could combine to become a larger, stronger male or female powerhouse called Datrish.